About Us
Our story started in 2005, when our directors, Dr. Nestor Soto and Maria-Jose Fuentes, opened up ArtLabbé Gallery in Santiago, Chile. Their purpose in opening up their gallery was not only to make it a profitable business but to work with various intercultural artists and leaders to promote culture through high quality art. After expanding their gallery to Miami, Florida, they began to dream about how to bring art to people who don’t normally have access to it. As a result, Fundacíon ArtLabbé was born in Santiago, Chile in 2016 as a nonprofit organization with the goal of inviting more people to join their movement of cultural formation through the arts with an emphasis on helping those most in need.
Being friends with Nestor and Maria-Jose for over 20 years, directors Dan Grotenhuis and Dan Aldrich had the idea in 2020 of expanding this endeavor in the United States with Foundation For The Arts, located in Santa Barbara, California as a way of benefitting communities here in the states and promoting a culture of caring for those who need it most.
Our Team
Daniel Grotenhuis
Founder // Board Chair
Dan Grotenhuis is our Founding Director and Board Chair. For 32 years he has been involved in business as an owner or investor in a wide range of industries including telecommunications, real estate, medical devices, art, signage, airplanes, and tax recovery. At 38 he was included in the South Coast Business Times’ "40 Under 40” which recognizes Southern California’s top up and coming business leaders. Dan initially matriculated to Middlebury College and then transferred to Westmont College where he earned, with honors, a BA in Business and Economics.
Because of his belief that giving is better than receiving, and after being inspired by the work of his friends in Chile, he founded the similar work of Foundation for the Arts to serve society’s most needy through the arts. This foundation and it’s projects touch on much of his personal story: his business experience in buying and selling art, his wife being an accomplished artist, five of his children being talented musicians, one being “special needs”, and one having a film production degree from USC. Dan enjoys surfing his paddle board, backpacking and spending time with his family.
Daniel Aldrich
Director
Dan Aldrich has been in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years and is currently Vice President of National Accounts for Sagent, LLC, which provides equipment, repair and maintenance services to carriers all over the world. In addition, he is a co-owner in Medio Investments, LLC, which owns safe, affordable, and family oriented low-income residential apartment units in Santa Barbara County.
Dan has been a member of the Rotary Club of Santa Barbara for over 17 years and currently serves on the board of directors for the Westmont College Foundation. He graduated with a degree in Political Science from UCLA in 1993. He is an avid reader of history and a golf and tennis enthusiast.
María José Fuentes Labbé
Founder // Board of Directors
María José Fuentes Labbé is a Chilean artist with a degree in Fine Arts from the Finis Terrae University in Chile, specialized in engraving. She is an artist, businesswoman and gallery owner. She has been working for several years on different projects at Westmont University, Santa Barbara, California, USA.
At a young age and inspired by her partner and friend Néstor Soto Godoy, she set goals and objectives beyond her development as an artist. She saw in this career the opportunity to empower, show and make emerging artists of her own country visible, as well as to reach with art, not only an elite of society, but to extend its great benefits to every corner of the world.
Néstor Soto Godoy
Founder // Board of Directors
Néstor Soto Godoy, is Chilean, a businessman and a gallery owner. He graduated in Theology and Philosophy from Georgetown University, Washington DC, and has an Honorary Doctorate from Shepherd University, California for his great contribution to humanity. Nestor has dedicated his life to promoting values and principles based on the Holy Scriptures, with the goal of restoring society from its core: the family.
From a family of artists, he has been inspired since he was a child to contemplate shapes and colors, to let himself be carried away by the instruments of great orchestras and to communicate through art, as he says, "..beyond the admiration for the creativity and authenticity of each artist. To find the deep meaning and essence of the human being, his spirituality, his search for the supreme, and the fullness of the inner self."
Brooke Petersen
Executive Director
Brooke Petersen is our Executive Director. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2014 and has extensive experience working in education, special needs care and art creation. She has exhibited artwork in shows on the California coast as well as art academies in Italy and has done various murals throughout town. Brooke has volunteered with the Braille Institute’s ceramics courses, tutored people with cognitive disabilities, helped run an intensive community-based internship program and taught art courses to children. All this combined with having worked closely with Dan Grotenhuis for the last 10 years, she was a natural choice for being our Executive Director.
With a heart for both art and service, she has joined our team full of enthusiasm to combine the two worlds into one with the goal of improving the communities around her. When she’s not working, you can find her painting in her Carpinteria home, surfing along the coast, or enjoying the company of her friends and family.